A Rumor of War

A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo, 1977

I finished reading this book in November 1978.

This was a classic Vietnam War memoir that seemed important to me at the time when it came out. We were still reeling from the defeat that America suffered in that war and veterans of that time like myself all knew people who lost their lives fighting that mistaken war. This book has gone on to be known as one of the great classics in the literature of wars throughout history.

I read this book shortly after I finished college which I attended using the GI Bill. I was also fortunate to have gone to a state college where in Pennsylvania the state required no tuition payments for Vietnam Era veterans. That was on top of the federal GI Bill check. Reading this book was an attempt to put everything in perspective.

The author, Philip Caputo, would go on to be a prize winning author and journalist and this would be one of many books I would read about the war in Vietnam. The first one was actually a 1974 novel set in Saigon during the war titled Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone that I read in 1976.

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